Hey - a few quick questions for CO Insider- sorry if these have already been answered before but there are tons of posts on here so i couldn't figure out if they had been.

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First, re: presidential platinum, the $30K minimum, please let me know about the following:

(1) i assume you have to be crediting miles to your CO account, versus buying a CO-operated flight thru CO, then applying miels to M&M. pls confirm.

(2) if i buy a flight thru LH with an LH codesahre flight number but operated by CO and I apply miles to CO, is this ticket revenue counting towards the $30K? especially and issue for me as I have huge numbers of banked credits with LH bc of cancelling non-refundable biz and first class fares.

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Second, regarding elite upgrades - pls view the below as constructive criticism:

(1) i'm a platinum and have been for 3 years. this process of being able to buy up to first class is making the value of being a platinum less and less. on a recent flight from pvr to ewr, i actually talked to nearly everyone in first class about how they got into first. many were silver (nearly everyone's silver at EWR) and upgraded for a pretty small amount of $, thereby bypassing the platinums on the waitlist. in line to board, i met 2 platinums who were not upgraded. i had booked in Y so i was upgraded at the time of purchase, but it appears now any elite level can do this.

so, given that i'm now upgraded about 50% of the time, especially when there no higher elite levels, its pretty frustrating and i find the benefits of being platinum (eg free upgrades - that's really the only one that matters) are being undermined at seemingly every turn. what's the benefit of being a platinum on CO in this environment?

among others, i'm also senator on LH, and at that level, when you book 2 award tickets, the second one is HALF MILES - that is HUGE if you want to go with family in biz on LH. So now that both are Star, I don't really see any benefit to applying miles to CO vs. LH.

I'd love CO insider to help me understand what i'm missing - why is being a platinum worth it at this point, relative to what are far superior benefits on other Star partners (in my opinion) described above?

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Third, regarding award travel availability on CO thru the CO site. Again, pls view the below as constructive criticism:

(1) i have to say that availability on CO is abysmal relative to other carriers. On LH, I can pretty much get any flight i want in any class even as little as 2 weeks before the trip. Delta has far better availably than does CO, as do united, us airways, virgin atlantic's availability is amazing....everyone actually is much much better.

On CO, there seems to be no availability for anything at the not-outragesously-expensive mile levels. So, again about "what's the benefit of being platinum", this just is another things that makes me say "i don't know".

I live in NYC, and commute to Europe weekly for work (out on sun, back on fri) 3 of 4 weeks. So - i WANT to like CO, and have it make sense to fly CO. Unfortunately, per all the above, that's tougher and tougher - and it's not at all clear that this new presidential platinum will be any better - it certainly doens't say how it will be in the program description - buy-ups will still skip the line.

I'm hoping something can change with CO structure and benefits - suggestions: if you're presidental platinum, then you're guaranteed an upgrade provided the entire first class isn't booked at the time of ticketing, or you can get a companion upgrade more than 2 hrs before take-off when there's never any availability anynow, or you get award travel availblity where there is actually some availability in the more reasonable miles levels.

As you can imagine, I spend a boatload on airfare annually and some simple changes (such as i described above) would result in my pushing all of that (and that of my collegues) to CO, versus pulling it away entirely in favor of LH.

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Looking fwd to a response on the above. Many thanks.

Welcome to FT.

I figured I would hit on this real quick, rather than commenting on all points. Most anecdotal evidence would suggest that CO has much better reward availability, especially at lower levels, than Delta's recently-devalued SkyMiles program, but obviously, YMMV.

UA, with Starnet blocking, should have less availability on Star partners than CO by default, but perhaps in the markets you are looking, there are more reward seats available on UA metal than CO. I have not yet found this to be the case.

Just for future reference, calling out CO Insider directly is generally frowned upon, though many of your grievances are shared by other members of this forum.

Co outsider won't be able to help you. Co doesn't want or care about your business. Consider not flying co anymore as dl or aa may suit your needs better. Continental nonepass considers itself the best with a world class seats and service to boot.

Welcome to FlyerTalk the second time around.

I'll answer in order.

1(1) Seems obvious.

1(2) This is a legit question. Clarification would be nice.

2(1) EUAs out of EWR are hard,not going to change.

2(2) Half miles--seeing as it harder to earn miles in M+M, not going to happen.

3(1) Ability to see availability as opposed to actual availability. I have noticed that online booking site is broken. Seeing as CO doesn't block like UA, clearly devalues your position. You should try using the ANA tool, and phoning it in.

3(2) every program has its pluses and minuses. if you are doing mostly high value travel to Europe, maybe M+M is better for you. If you want EUAs stick with CO. It sounds like you want your cake and eat it too. Not going to happen.

I'll answer in order.



1(1) YES!

1(2) It is certain.

2(1) It is decidedly so.

2(2) Reply hazy. Try again.

3(1) Don't count on it.

3(2) Most likely.

Oh, by the way:

Odds of a direct response from CO Insider:



It is considered poor form in this forum to ask for an appearance by CO Insider.

Correct.

I'm pretty certain that the ticket must be on CO stock and CO metal to count for the $30K spend.

100% credit on discounted coach fares, for starters. If you are always buying Y or higher fares the US-based programs are generally a bad deal relative to the EU-based ones.

Why does it matter so long as the partners have plenty of availability? I've booked flights on the desired days and in the desired cabin on LH, TK, VS, CO, SQ and MS all using CO miles. I don't care that CO might not have the best availability so long as the miles have access to available seats, and IME they do just fine.

If you are flying in paid biz on those flights you should be flying on CO and probably crediting to LH or BD. Maybe throw 25K at CO so you can get your Y-Ups on domestic flights but otherwise there isn't any benefit to you for having OnePass as your primary program. I've got some F flights coming up and they're going directly to my BD account. WAY more value there for F fares.

Thanks for the responses to the posters original question, and also to being the FT police. Without nosey jacka$$es like you, this forum would actually be able to be open, and members would not have to worry about foolish repsonses like yours!

Now-to the OP-the q's pertaining to exactly HOW CO accounts for the $30K are legit. I have an understanding, but do not want to guide you incorrectly on the answers-so I will let COInsider answer!

thanks for the info to many of you.
i'm new to the forum, so i appreciate the advice.

Need a mirror?

Just a friendly heads up -- it's generally not considered the best of form to directly call out the insiders (be it CO, UA, *W, LH, etc.) directly, much less with an opened question about the program, as they might not be able to comment on it due to competitive reasons.

Certainly a unique question (i.e. "I have a special situation/policy issue that no one at CO seems to be to resolve, should I contact the insider?") might warrant a specific thread, but asking for general comments from the insiders is something they might not be able to directly respond to.

Anyways that said *we* can certainly speculate so here's my best guess --

W/r/t your second question: CO and every airline has to walk the tightrope of "what have you done for me recently" with "what have you done for me in the past" and balance those two sides.

Traditionally FT'ers are more in the "past" camp as this is the fundamental basis for loyalty programs. After all, if the airline did not care about the past they'd just simply upgrade those on the highest fare without any consideration of just how much that individual had flown in the last week/month/year/decade/etc.

Anyways CO's actively looking to monitize more aspects of their product -- the recent changes on meals and exit rows come to mind -- and this includes offering people shortcuts to FC.

While CO has put in measure to ensure GMs are not offered upgrades-for-cash at the expense of the elites, they have been active in promoting the upsell (someone purchasing up to a new fare) to first class, which in turn will only serve to directly erode the primary benefit of the elite program.

And there in lies the real question: will the elite population on the whole accept the devaluation of spending more time in Y product without any consolation prize for their loyalty or will they move elsewhere?

I personally don't know what the answer is *but* I think CO's fooling themselves if they think banking on the EUA is going to carry the program. It's not and they need to address the fact more elites are going to be spending more time in coach.

And if elite are going to be spending more time in coach they need to take a good look around and realize they offer a disappointing hard product and soft product when compared to their peers.

For your third point I'd also echo your comments on award space on CO with one cavet: they do release inventory, but it's often far closer in then what I've seen others release (especially AA and UA) and so if you're planning a trip in advance - and want to fly CO - you might find it somewhat challenging.

That said, CO does have generous rules for their awards and excellent partners with *...and to be rather honest, why would you want to fly with CO (or UA or US) if you can score a seat on LH, TG, SQ, NH, NZ, etc.?

Hope that helps and again welcome to FT!

He's already answered it is 30K on CO metal, MM counts all EQM, but the 30k threshold for 2010 program year is CO metal only.

Dude, that's a little harsh isn't it? You know it might just be that time of the month...

And as pointed out, it needs to be on CO ticket stock as well, after all that is the only way they can quantify the $$ spent. For the record, this is how all the spend-based programs work.